The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Monday that delivering aid to Gaza by air is “very expensive” and “not sustainable,” and should be seen as a “last resort.”
Delivering aid by air, with parachutes, “is always the last resort if we ask any (UN) colleague who works in logistics, because it is very, very expensive and not sustainable,” the head of El OCHA staff in Occupied Palestine, Andrea De Domenico, at a press conference in New York, in which she participated via video call.
This is a request made this Monday by the Prime Minister of the State of Palestine, Mohammed Shtayyeh, who asked the UN and the European Union to “drop aid” from the air in the Gaza Strip to support civilians blocked by the war. between Israel. and Hamas.
“The reality is that there are ways to provide assistance if the parties can agree to continued, unhindered access. Therefore, I think the first point of entry should be to insist on opening the crossings [de fronteira] and ensure that supply is sustained, instead of thinking about extreme scenarios,” argued Domenico.
The Chief of Staff said he was aware that Jordan has already made progress in this approach, with the delivery of aid by air, but stressed that “the quantities are limited” and that, logistically, “it is very, very difficult.”
According to OCHA, 76 trucks crossed Gaza from Egypt on Sunday, bringing to 981 the number of trucks that have entered Palestinian territory since October 21.
This humanitarian aid is considered very insufficient for the approximately 2.4 million inhabitants, 1.6 million of whom have been displaced since the start of the war, plunged into a catastrophic situation, according to the United Nations.
According to UN data, around 500 trucks of humanitarian aid entered Gaza daily before the war between Israel and Hamas.
Domenico also explained that, starting Tuesday, United Nations teams in the enclave will not be able to unload the trucks because they do not have the fuel to operate the machinery necessary for this process or to transport these loads to the places where those in need are located. are.
The OCHA chief of staff in Occupied Palestine also recalled that communication with the enclave could be completely cut off on Thursday, following the announcement by the Palestinian telecommunications service Paltel that it will be forced to completely close the service due to lack of fuel.
Domenico also said that there are no safe places in Gaza and that he has received reports of several arrests of people, particularly men, who were trying to move from the north to the south of the enclave, a supposedly safer area for Palestinian civilians.
UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric today defined the situation in the Gaza Strip as “extremely terrible” and noted that everything “is happening in plain sight.”
“We need access to our fuel to take it to UN facilities, desalination plants, health clinics… We should not have to negotiate fuel,” he stressed.
All UN offices around the world observed a minute of silence this Monday morning for the more than one hundred United Nations employees who died in Gaza.
At the United Nations headquarters in New York, the UN flag flew at half-mast as part of the tribute to the employees who died in the enclave.
Source: TSF
